Brits quizzed on the future of payments

Biometric payments are the future according to more than half of Brits, while the inventor of text messaging claims people will soon transact with simple words and gestures.

According to research from Nationwide Payments, some six in ten (58%) Brits believe that by 2037 they will be able pay for items in shops using just their thumbprint, and around a quarter (23%) think they will be paying using a microchip implanted in their hand.

And while more than half of people (55%) believe phones or watches will still be used to pay in 20 years’ time, leading futurologist and inventor of text messaging, Dr Ian Pearson, doesn’t think it will be that long before the next evolution.

Futurologist and inventor of text messaging, Dr Ian Pearson, said: “Contactless technology is a compromise, still needing to get your card close to a reader. Soon, people will complete a transaction just with a simple gesture and a few words. Gesturing towards someone and saying ‘Here is £13.46’ is quite enough to combine the voice and gesture recognition with the presence of your smartphone as electronic identification.”

“In much the same way, typing is also an antiquated means of communicating and long overdue for an upgrade. With modern artificial intelligence and voice recognition, there is no reason why someone can’t just talk to a distant friend or colleague and they would hear them. The phrase, “Hey, do you feel like going for a coffee?” is quite enough to recognise who a message is for and to route the audio straight into their earphones”.

Nationwide’s survey, which polled 2,000 UK adults, shows that the nation isn’t so advanced in their thinking when it comes to payments, with many not quite yet ready to forget existing methods.

More than half believe that debit cards (56%) and credit cards (53%) will still be used by 2037, while 43 per cent think cash will still be relevant. Around one in ten (9%) think that traveller’s cheques will still exist in 20 years’ time.

Paul Horlock, Director of Payments at Nationwide said: “We are always excited to hear about new ways of paying, whether out of curiosity or convenience. Financial service organisations need to continue exploring how to best serve their customers by balancing authentication, speed and convenience when looking at new products.

“We continue to invest in bringing new payment technologies, from contactless, to Paym and mobile payments. New innovations, such as biometric identification, are also in the pipeline as we look to the future.”

Nationwide is committed to providing a range of quick, easy and secure ways for customers to pay and provides a range of payment methods that make life as easy and as convenient as possible – more information is available here http://www.nationwide.co.uk/ways-to-pay